The Breaking of the World
by heroespreferswords1
Summary: A Wheel of Time story that explores what it was like to be alive during the breaking, and those who helped see the world survive to see in the dawn of the Third Age.
1. Chapter 0: Authors Note

Authors Note:

This is a story set during the breaking. As such, the world features more science-fiction elements than you might be used to in Wheel of Time fan fiction.

While I plan of featuring the forsaken in the story, the vast majority of the story is told without featuring any characters in the books themselves – there won't be a part when everyone starts time travelling to hang out with Rand and Matt and Perrin, and if you need to have those characters as major players in your fan fiction, you may not get much out of this effort.

I'm not trying to fit my world exactly into the lore of the books, but I do want to answer some questions that remain unanswered: How did enough people in the world survive through the breaking to "see in" the Third Age? Why couldn't the female Aes Sedai reign in the male channelers? What role did the Ogier play?

The lack of detail about the breaking itself gives me a healthy amount of artistic license, especially as what little knowledge is given in the books can easily be seen as bias at best and complete myth at worst. Having said that, if I've made an error with the universe, please let me know, and I'll think of either a credible reason why it's different, or write it in to the story.

This is the first piece of fiction I have written since I was in school quite some time ago, so any constructive criticism is very welcome.

Rob


	2. Chapter 1: A Beginning

"It took nearly two thousand years to build Paraan Disen, and by the most optimistic account, less than two days to lay the entire city to waste. The irony, of course, is that the very power that gave the city its soul, which fed and clothed its citizens and supported its magnificent landscapes and beautiful vistas, was also to be the instrument of its destruction. And what a destruction it was."

- **Norual Pior, The Fall of Paaran Disen, circa 200 years after the breaking  
**Recovered in part by Brown Ajah historians, 1288 AB

**I: A beginning**

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

In the twilight of one such age, a light blanket of snow began to fall over a vast plain of bones, cresting over crater pocked hills and desolate valleys for hundreds of leagues, settling on long dead ruins of cities and the charred remains of desolated forests. The snow was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was _a_ beginning.

Tael sat in the clearing, on the trunk of a fallen tree, its layer of moss slowly being covered by a thin sheet of ash-grey snow. He rubbed his hands and stared at the wall that stretched out before him for leagues in all directions.

Nobody else could see the wall. To an observer, he would simply be staring at another group of trees and low shrubs, another patch of dirt. In truth, he couldn't see the wall either, not with his eyes; but he could feel it, taste it. It was more real to him than the trunk he was sitting on, or the snow blowing across his unprotected face in the denser forested area that surrounded the southernmost part of Stedding Haungshi.

Thirteen steps would take him across that invisible barrier. Exactly thirteen. He had counted on one of the many evenings he had come to this spot since he had arrived here six years ago. He had never forgotten the number. Overhead, a small group of birds flew through the permanently stone grey sky, dipping down to settle in the trees in a distant part of the Stedding.

Tael stood from the log, wiping the moss from his trousers absently, watching the skies. He took a sick sort of comfort in watching the birds. Their prison was only slightly larger than his, though its borders were more obvious. No birds flew beyond the edge of the Stedding, where the high, healthy cedar trees once numerous in this part of the world became thinner, shorter and sickly looking, before finally vanishing all together leaving miles snow covered and barren, and bleak plain that Tael vaguely remembered being a mixture of woodland and grass what seemed like a lifetime ago.

No animal could survive out there, not even the birds that could no doubt fly for many hours without need of food or water. The birds were trapped, just like him and Alein. Tael was held back by more than mere geography though, chained to something far deeper than the dead soil or the freezing cold. Thirteen steps away, the one power called to him. First as nothing more than a feeling in the pit of his stomach, and then, all around him, faint whispers carried in the wind and the snow. He felt his body take an involuntary step forwards. The world felt more real and more distant at the same time.

"You need to return to the village, Tae." said a voice behind him, between panting breaths, "Right now, you need to come back."

Tael broke from his thoughts, the world snapping back around him. He felt sick, but he threw himself around to face his brother. Immediately, he regretted the sudden motion, stretching a hand to a nearby tree branch to steady himself, the other reflexively moving to soothe the flash of pain in his head.

"What in _the hells_ are you doing here?", he snapped, the world still spinning as a look of hurt flashed across Alein's face. Tael steadied himself and put his other hand to his face, feeling the heat of his temples and inhaled the sharp air. When he lowered his hands, the sickness had past, replaced by a familiar emptiness and a throbbing headache. "I'm sorry, Alein, I didn't mean to…" he trailed off, weakly.

Tael's brother was many things, but independent was not one of them. Tael had held out hope that Alein would become stronger and more independent as he became a young man, but if anything, Alein had become more reliant on him for companionship, and less able, or willing to cope with the world around him.

His lack of emotional growth was mirrored in a lack of physical growth too, his brothers slender features and tiny frame ill-suited for the weather and lifestyle that had been forced upon them. His face, recovering from Tael's outburst, was intense, dark brown eyes staring at him through a tattered hood designed to keep the worst of the wind away from his pale face, flecks of snow finding their way in through the holes, turning to water on his skin.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry.", gasped Alein, still panting. "I know you come out here to be alone. I didn't want to disturb you, but this is important, the elders have called an emergency meeting."

Tael thought he could hear a touch of fear in his brothers voice, which was confirmed when he started to speak, too quickly and too deliberately for the usually quiet young man.

Alein hugged himself as glacial wind blew through the trees, rustling the canopy over their heads. He looked back over his shoulder towards the centre of the stedding. They were both too far away from the populated areas to hear any noises over the wind, and the trees masked any sign of the village and Ogier settlement only twenty minutes' walk north of the clearing.

"They're _angry_, Tae, angrier than I've ever seen an Ogier, and gods know we've seen enough Ogier for that to mean something very bad."

Tael stepped over the log he had been sitting on to walk towards his brother, putting an arm on his shoulder in a reassuring gesture that had been calming Alein's nerves since they were children. For the millionth time, he praised his own training in the control of emotion, his face becoming unreadable. In truth, his heart had skipped a bit. The Ogier did not call the council for trivial matters.

"It's alright, Alein." He said, his voice clam, reassuring, controlled. "Did they happen to let slip what it was about?"

Alein cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was slower, and the fear that has laced his previous announcement, if not entirely gone, would not have been noticeable by anyone but Tael.

"You know they won't tell me _anything_, they wouldn't have even let me come get you if I hadn't been the only person who would know where you'd be." Tael nodded. He and the log and the invisible wall had spent many silent hours together the last few years and he considered the area his and his alone. Alein had followed him out here last winter after reading one of Liesa's books on tracking, and Tael had snapped at him then, too. He had made it clear he wasn't to come back out again, that even he needed his space to think and be alone.

"All I know is that they also called for the Mayor. I saw Laliven just before I came looking for you, she said her father had been in the meeting hall for over two hours, but she didn't know anything more than me."

Despite his nervousness, the pain in his head and the gripping cold that was beginning to set in as the day grew darker, Tael smiled.

"Only _two hours_?" He asked his brother, his own smile doing more to reassure Alein than his than his years of training. "I guess that means the Ogier will have probably just finished announcing his arrival, then!" Tael patted his brother on the shoulder and they turned to walk back towards the centre of the Stedding, the snow already beginning to remove any evidence that someone had been there at all.

* * *

Eldria channelled a weave of fire into the pile of rotted wood she had salvaged from the remains of a small building close to the road. The flames burst into life, and the sudden heat was instantly welcoming. Fires were a luxury on the road, every one sending out a beacon for miles around, but after three days of nearly freezing nights spent lying in the dirt, shivering, she could take no more. She let go of the one power with reluctance, staring into the sickly flames.

In the past six years, she had seen the one power used to boil a lake, lay waste to an entire city district and summon the dead. It was a devastating weapon even before the breaking, but in the hands of mad men, it had become something far worse. Despite the wonderful sweetness of saidar and all the times it had saved her life, she had found herself wondering if the power was not more of a curse than a blessing.

Level cities it may, but one thing the power could not do was create food and water. It could make plants grow stronger, of course, or protect crops from pests, or make soil more fertile. Eldria had visited a weather control station where once, where two Aes'Sedai, one elderly man and his younger apprentice, were responsible for controlling the weather of the entire region to produce the perfect environment for crops.

Unfortunately for Eldria, helping food to grow and creating it from thin air were two very different things. What little soil could be found under the snow and ash was dry and lifeless, no amount of channeling would turn it healthy again. Besides, even if Eldria had a clue what weaves had been used to encourage growing before the breaking, she had no intention of staying in one place long enough to see any sort of harvest. Occasionally she would find a thin, sick animal on her travels, enough to feed her for a few nights. Mostly though, food came from the ruins of the old world, when it came at all.

Eldria removed her pack, and sorted through the contents. She had enough food in cans to last her another two days, perhaps three if she stretched it out. She hadn't passed the remains of any sort of settlement in days now, hadn't even seen anybody else on the road, and she was starting to worry if she had lost her bearings. She would skip eating tonight, and open one of the cans tomorrow evening, make them last for as long as she possibly could before she lost the ability to hold the power at all.

That was another limitation of the power that nobody would have even considered ten years ago. Hunger and thirst - deep, desperate hunger and thirst - could seriously affect a person's ability to hold onto the power. It wasn't that being hungry weakened your ability to channel in the strictest sense, but it eroded your ability to concentrate, which meant trying to grasp or direct the source could sometimes be like trying to pluck a fish from a river with your bare hands. It meant that stronger weaves sometimes wouldn't come when they were needed, or worse, could cause the power to slip away.

It was frustrating for an Aes Sedai of her age and experience to have to struggle with the source like an apprentice. More than that, it was scary not being able to rely on something that had been a constant her entire life, a force like the wind or the rain or the beating of her own heart. She would sometimes stay up at night, practicing apprentice exercises with the power, panicking when it took longer than usual, calming when eventually it flared in her again. If only she could-

Eldria heard the twig break at the same time she felt something hit her across the face hard, sending her sprawling over the open fire, rolling onto her back. Cursing, she began to roll over, extending her hands to pick herself up off the floor to present a less easy target for her unknown attackers. As she tried to lift herself, she heard a loud click. Looking up, Eldria was staring down the barrel of a revolver held by a dirty looking man with desperation in his eyes.

"Blood and _ashes_, Damon, she's a bloody _Aes Sedai_," said a frightened younger voice somewhere behind her, to the left. "Gonna get us killed, messing with an Aes Sedai like this, Damon, let's go, no meals worth this."

The man pointing the gun at her head ignored the other, and instead spoke directly to her in voice that carried none of the nervousness of his companion. She could hear the cruelty in that voice, and she cursed herself for being so foolish.

"Do you know what this is, Aes Sedai, that I hold in my hands?"

In her 200 years of life, she had seen a gun twice before. The first time in the military history museum in Jalanda when she was a girl, a hall of preserved holographic images from a war fought millennia ago. The second time was at a blood match she had been encouraged to watch by a court official a few years before the breaking. The violent fights to the death had become more and more popular in previously peaceful towns and cities as the dark one's grip tightened across the world, but it was rare to see a gun used in one; they were to quick and too clean to draw a crowd.

"Actually, you don't need to answer that." said the man, pulling something at the back of the weapon that made a loud clicking sound that would have made Eldria jump if not for the calm that came from holding the one power.

"The look on your face would suggest you have, so here's a more pertinent question for you, lady Aes Sedai: Do you think you can channel quick enough to stop such a weapon, so close to you? Do you trust the one power with your life? I hear it's been less than reliable for you folk, in recent times."

Behind her she could hear the sound of her bag being emptied onto the ground. She didn't dare to take her eyes off the man with the gun. He was well spoken and he didn't seem afraid of a channeler, two things that were very rare in this new world. They both knew the answer to his question. Even the weakest Aes Sedai can pluck an arrow or perhaps even a bullet from the air with enough time to create the weaves, but this was too close. She could attempt to knock it out of the man's hand, but her hunger made the power unreliable, and she wouldn't get a second chance.

"She's got food, not much, mind, but its bloody food. Proper stuff, too, from back before. And a sword, mighty fine looking sword, Damon, can I have it?"

Eldria's mind raced. She wasn't going to leave this spot alive if she didn't do _something_. Even if, my some miracle, the men didn't kill her, they'd make off with the last of her supplies and her weapon, which would be death sentence enough. If only she had heard them coming she could-

Another noise, to her left, to quiet to be another person. An animal of some kind walking beyond the light of the fire. The men hadn't heard it, Eldria herself was only aware of it due to increased hearing holding the power granted her. She created a tiny weave of air and fire and directed it towards the general area the noise was coming from. In the distance, a fox yelped, startled from being hit by an invisible force, scattering into the night. For a split second, the eyes of the gunman flashed towards the direction of the noise. A split second was all Eldria needed.

The world blurred into slow motion. Senses heightened by the power, Eldria used a combination of her own strength and a weave of air to kick the gunman's legs away from him. Even before the man had begun to fall, she reached again for the one source, and knocked the gun clean from the man's hand. The man's grip on the weapon was strong and his arm was jerked back as the gun flew across the dirt, spinning his entire body as he crashed into the dirt.

She pulled herself to her feet, and attempted to weave spirit to create a further distraction for the men. The one power slipped from her grasp, and she faltered, losing not just the ability to channel but the sensory edge the power provided her. She spun around, thanking the gods that her sword was still lying near the rest of her things, and not in the hands of one of the other two men.

She lunged for the weapon. The two men nearest the sword moved too slowly, likely expecting her to channel instead. Her hands grasped the hilt of the blade as the men drew their own swords. She could hear the gunman behind her picking himself up off the floor, swearing. She reached for the power again, and again it slipped from her. Thankfully the men had no idea she didn't hold the power; they were holding back, approaching her in small uncertain steps watching her hands, visibly nervous.

Eldria used every ounce of concentration she had left in her, trying to calm her heart and relax her muscles. She reached out again, and in a flash the power flooded through her once more. Her nervousness dropped away. She couldn't risk channelling now; losing the power again, but she could use it in other ways. She heard the sound of metal sliding against leather behind her, and span in time to see the group's leader lunging at her with a rusted dagger.

With the power fuelling her, everything else happened in a brutal slow motion. She stepped swiftly to the side with reflexes her assailant wasn't expecting, his blow connecting with the air, knocking him off balance.

Eldria dropped to one knee, her sword flashing upwards in The River Undercuts the Bank, gutting the man. As he toppled, she flew back around, spinning. Black Pebbles on Snow cut a large wound through the chest of the man closest to her, dropping him. The final attacker hesitated for the split second it took Eldria to close the distance, Dandelion in the Wind cutting open the man's throat in a single swing, blood flying across her face and covering the ground.

She stood near the fire, covered in blood and sweat, panting heavily, sheathing the blade. Reluctantly, she let go of the power, the sweetness melting away along with the heightened awareness. The night was silent now save for the crackling of the dying fire. Her stomach rumbled, and she suddenly felt very, very tired.


End file.
